In the coming days you’ll see some changes in the newspaper that I want to explain to you, as well as give you background on some changes we’ve made in the past couple of weeks.
Beginning this week, the Monday and Tuesday newspapers will have a new configuration, with an A and B section.
Section A will have local and national news, features, opinion and obituaries both days. Section B will have sports news, comics and classified advertising. On Tuesdays, it will include the business pages.
These changes will allow us to run fewer press units on those days.
Media companies of many types, including newspapers, are faced with the most difficult economic climate we’ve ever encountered. Decisions such as these section changes help us reduce expenses, just as many other businesses are finding necessary.
In addition, we are discontinuing the Neighbors page that was published on Tuesdays.
Also, several readers have asked why we stopped publishing the news summary on Page 2A.
We’ve heard consistent feedback from readers that they didn’t use the news summary and would prefer that we use that space for other news stories. It’s good to hear that some readers found it useful, but it seems clear that the majority of readers prefer more stories to the summary.
You may also have noticed that we’ve reduced our Travel page space and shifted the focus of that space to travel tips and information. In place of a longer feature story that previously anchored the page, we’ve continued Arthur Frommer’s column and added Christopher Elliott’s Travel Troubleshooter column. We’ve also added Rick Steves’ European travel column at www.kansas.com/travel.
We’re also very happy to have Richard Crowson’ s cartoons back in The Eagle. You’ll find them on Sunday Opinion pages.
You may have seen Opinion Page Editor Phillip Brownlee’s note last week that Doonesbury and Mallard Fillmore are no longer in the paper because we’re publishing a single Opinion page, except for Sunday. Several readers have asked us to pick up Doonesbury on the regular comics pages.
We’re open to considering this, but want to hear your feedback. In the past, readers complained about Doonesbury being on the comics pages because of its political content.
I know some of these changes have removed features you will miss, but I hope we’ve also added some that you will enjoy. We appreciate your understanding as we make changes necessary to adapt to difficult economic times.
If you have comments or suggestions, give us a call at 268-6222.